On 29 June a bunch of PR people and food bloggers got together to discuss blogger relations in response to some recent and very public PR stuff ups involving food bloggers and journos.  At the meet up, a panel discussion was held with Helen from Grab Your Fork, Reem from I Am Obsessed with Food and Ed from Tomato.

L to R: Helen Yee, Ed Charles, Reem Abdelaty & Renee Creer

A few days prior to this, Text100 released their Blogger Survey 09 which reported that PR people were continuing some bad habits in regards to blogger outreach.  PR people:

• continue to blindly send corporate press releases to bloggers
• are failing to read the blogs and truly understand their target bloggers’ communities
• seem to expect bloggers to post corporate material, demonstrating a lack of understanding of the medium and the very reason why bloggers blog
• treat bloggers as they would journalists - not as influencers which is more appropriate

Based on my conversations with Helen, Reem and Ed and from the discussion on the night, I’ve put together some tips on blogger relations for PR people.

1. Question if blogger relations is appropriate. It might seem like a good idea at the time (you know, tag blogger outreach onto the back of your traditional publicity efforts to increase exposure - after all it’s a cheap way to generate some online buzz and impress your clients on how PR 2.0 savvy you are), however blogger outreach shouldn’t just be done because it looks like it can be done quickly, cheaply and easily.  Any PR activity must help to achieve overall objectives.
2. Understand the medium. A blog is essentially an online diary of someone’s experiences.  Blogging is a very personal endeavour, mostly undertaken in personal time.  The point of blogging is to have an opinion about something, share it and engage in two-way dialogue with other bloggers and readers.  Bloggers are driven by their own instincts and interests, they are not necessarily into the PR or media agenda and they are not mouthpieces for PR messages who can be easily bought.
3. Realise that bloggers don’t need PR people. Text100’s report highlighted that most bloggers get information from other bloggers or RSS feeds.  In addition, bloggers usually have a backlog of content they’d like to post so they don’t need PR people to provide content or news; they have done well enough without us for the last few years.
4. Understand a blogger’s needs. Interesting, valuable, remarkable content or experiences are important to bloggers; in this regard they are like traditional media. Bloggers also consider what their readers would like to hear about.  In addition, having time to post is a factor when it comes to blogging or not and for food bloggers in particular, having great pics is a necessity for a post.
5. Do your research. Take time to thoroughly look at and learn about the bloggers you wish to contact because they are not homogenous; they all have different interests, motivations and approaches.  Read the blogger’s ‘about’ page, read the ‘archives’ and use the ’search’ function. Learn what their interests are, how often and when they post - really get to know them and what they’re about.
6. Realise you can’t control bloggers. Bloggers are entitled to blog as they see fit and they are without external constraints (editors, stakeholders etc).  Just because you provide a product or experience and a blogger accepted it, it doesn’t mean they will write about it and it doesn’t mean they will write positively about it. Many bloggers feel uncomfortable with the sense of obligation implied or otherwise by accepting things, when it comes to being approached by PR people.
7. Realise you can’t control the message. In an industry built on managing or moulding messages, relinquishing control is often uncomfortable.  In some areas of PR and for some clients, having negative comments in the public sphere can be a bit of an affront.  Know that while bloggers will make corrections to errors it is inappropriate to request that negative posts or comments be removed.  As Mel from Fooderati said “you can’t ‘un-have’ an experience” so why would a blogger remove a post they have written?  As a PR, you can certainly respond and seek to rectify any issues but don’t expect posts or comments to be removed.
8. Take a personal approach. Do not send blanket ‘dear blogger’ or <insert name> emails and expect to get a reply.  When approaching bloggers, make a personal introduction - you’re trying to build a relationship after all - and don’t hard sell or waste people’s time with lame PR ideas. In addition, realise that some bloggers welcome PR contact but others don’t.  If a blogger hasn’t included their contact details on their blog, this would imply they do not wish to be contacted, so respect this.
9. Invest the time and best resources to do the job right. Constructing personal pitches and building relationships takes time and as Ed commented “intelligent targeting is labour intensive.”  Blogger relations requires time and competent, sensible, personable PR people.  If it’s a job given to junior staff, they will need a thorough understanding of the medium and the best way to approach bloggers.
10. Always explain and disclose. Saying “I do the PR for so and so” doesn’t mean much to someone who doesn’t know what PR is in the first place.  Go to the effort to explain who you are, what you’re doing, who the client is, how you see bloggers fitting into the picture; whatever you think will help the blogger understand why you have contacted them.  Always disclose and expect that if you provide something to a blogger, they will publicly disclose too.
11. Think about what you’re offering. Bloggers like to link to other blogs and many readers will read multiple blogs under the one area or topic.  It can be pretty boring if everyone is writing about Barry’s Biscuits in the one week, so think about what you’re offering and how you can offer something unique to each blogger.  Bloggers also want to be able to distinguish themselves from other bloggers.
12. Think about the content you’re providing. Many suggest that content for bloggers should be more conversational, should avoid corporate speak, and should be more web friendly.  Reem however made the point that bloggers are mostly all professionals so they’re familiar with corporate speak and don’t mind press releases.  In any regard, clear, concise information is best and sharable, condensed, web friendly content is recommended.
13. Be careful who you offer freebies or payment to.  Some bloggers will not accept any freebies because they feel it compromises their credibility.  It comes down to a personal choice so be mindful of this when approaching people.  In addition, it’s not appropriate to offer payment to bloggers.  While this does happen, in the States for example, and while you could probably find a ’pay for post’ blogger somewhere, it’s certainly not considered appropriate or ethical.
14. Follow up with manners not expectations. A great way to follow up with a blogger is: “is this of interest to you” not “when do you think you’ll write about this.”  As noted above, bloggers are not obliged to write about your product or service, so don’t assume this.  In addition, if a blogger has written a post on your client, sending a thank you email never goes astray.
15. Understand that bloggers talk. Food bloggers in particular are a large, tight knit community of people who regularly socialise together, link to each other’s blogs and talk all day (and night) on Twitter.  Know that if you spam them, are rude or inappropriate, or make unreasonable demands, they will all talk about you and your PR agency (within a matter of minutes) and it’s likely that your email will be circulated and possibly even published online.  Public naming and shaming has happened before.

That’s all for now.  I hope I’ve done the topic justice and I would love to hear feedback on these tips.  If you have any additional points, let me know.

You can listen to the full conversation here.

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Here are some additional blog posts you might like to check out:

• Last Appetite: 4 tips for food blog PR
• Not Quite Nigella: 10 things you should know about food bloggers
• Time Out London: When are food bloggers just meal blaggers?
• The Guardian: Food bloggers and PRs to meet
• The Guardian: When the food bloggers met the PRs

Last but not least, thanks to everyone who came along on the night and thanks to Helen, Reem, Ed,  Restaurant Arras and Glen Frost for the photos.

Posted by Renee Creer
Photos by Glen Frost, Frocomm

L to R: Melissa Leong, Reem Abdelaty & Ed Charles Pre-talk drinks

Pre-talk drinks

Lately, there has been some very public instances in which PR people have been ‘named and shamed’ online - on blogs and in twitter - for the way they have approached food bloggers. 

It hasn’t been pretty and when situations like this occur, it doesn’t do anyone any good.  I attribute this strife largely to a general lack of knowledge and understanding about bloggers and blogging. 

So in an effort to improve relations between PR professionals and members of the food blogging community, Stellar* is hosting a ‘meet up’ and panel discussion.  Please click here for event details and registration.

If you would like to gain some insight into the food blogger communities in Sydney and Melbourne; gain an understanding of who food bloggers are, how they work and what they do and don’t want; learn how to approch bloggers (without pissing them off) and build positive relationships, then please join us for this FREE event. 

Likewise, if you have questions you’ve been too afraid to ask - now’s your chance!  Ask on the night, email questions through to us prior OR leave a question on our blog.

The format is a panel discussion followed by an open Q & A session.  Speakers include:

• Ed Charles
  Melbourne based freelance journalist and food blogger behind Tomato, which attracts +30,000 page views per month.
• Helen Yee
  Food enthusiast and the appetite behind one of Sydney’s longest-running food blogs, Grab Your Fork, online since 2004.
• Reem Abdelaty
  A passionate foodie with an aptly titled and popular blog called I Am Obsessed With Food.

Why are we doing this?  Because as we stated here “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”.  We want to help to make things better and we thought that this would be a step in the right direction for all parties.

Big thanks and shout out to Restaurant Arras for providing a beautiful venue and ‘hatted’ nibbles for the night.  And to Ed for making the trip up from Melbourne.

Posted by Renee Creer

Is it just me or has PR been slammed more in the last month than in the last few years?  The industry appears to be copping it from all sides.  We’ve had:

• Neil Shoebridge’s AFR piece titled How to lose clients and annoy reporters.  He argues that the PR industry is awash with incompetent people and outlines his top and deady PR sins.
• Jason Whittaker’s guest post on Mumbrella titled Precious PR hacks and why they do their clients no good.  Here, Whittaker has had enough of PRs telling him how to do his job.
• Ed Charles, journalist and blogger, named and shamed a PR in this post after he and other food bloggers were spammed via a contact list of bloggers Charles published online.
• Heated industry debate, in B&T magazine and online over Brisbane agency, Publicity Queen, and their promise of guaranteed publicity.

And that’s not the extent of it. So what does one in PR say or do about all of this?

We consider ourselves an agency of smart, professional people who know the media and have good relationships with journalists.  We have, on occasion, f#*$ed up, gotten it wrong, and done dumb stuff.

There are always two sides to any story or coin and may we state that the stupid and incompetent are not just confined to the PR industry!

Rather than scrap it out school yard style, we’ve decided to outline A NEW MANIFESTO FOR PR because if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

We promise to:

1. Not be idiots or self important show ponies

2. Not pitch stupid, irrelevant stuff to media outlets, journalists or bloggers

3. Continue to comply with spam laws

4. Limit blanket distributions where possible

5. Keep a sense humour

6. Get to know the media or blog’s scope and where journalists’ interests lie

7. Build reciprocal, positive relationships

8. Play nice

9. Make PR as relevant and exciting as possible

10. Always strive to be better at what we do

11. Follow up and keep our word

12. Set a positive example

13. Educate younger staff and clients on the right way to do media relations

14. Not make claims that we can’t justify or promises that we can’t keep

15. Do our research

16. Beware of fibbers and phonies

17. Try to fix things when they go wrong

18. Be patient and reasonable in the light of differences

19. Ask and learn more about how journalists work and what they need

Like to contribute?  By all means, add to the list.  Or follow this conversation on Mumbrella.

Posted by Renee Creer